


Final Grace (1/1)

by whichclothes



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-10
Updated: 2011-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-22 11:40:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichclothes/pseuds/whichclothes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>  Post-series. Not every problem has a solution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Final Grace (1/1)

**Author's Note:**

> Uses the [](http://angst-bingo.livejournal.com/profile)[**angst_bingo**](http://angst-bingo.livejournal.com/)  prompt "execution." Grateful thanks to my beta, [](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/profile)[**silk_labyrinth**](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/) . Feedback is cherished!

_**Final Grace (1/1)**_  
 **Title** : Final Grace  
 **Pairing:** Spike/Buffy  
 **Rating:** PG  
 **Disclaimer** : I'm not Joss  
 **Summary:**   Post-series. Not every problem has a solution.  
 **Warnings:**   spoilery, so highlight if you want to see 'em *lots of angst, character death *  
 **Author's Notes:** Uses the [](http://angst-bingo.livejournal.com/profile)[**angst_bingo**](http://angst-bingo.livejournal.com/)   prompt "execution." Grateful thanks to my beta, [](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/profile)[**silk_labyrinth**](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/)  . Feedback is cherished!

  
  


**  
FINAL GRACE   
**

As always when she first entered his cell, hope shot through his body with a warm glow. But also as always, the hope dissipated as soon as he saw the expression on her face, and his body was again cold as ice.

“Hi, Spike,” she said quietly. Her arms were crossed over her chest and the fine lines at the corners of her eyes seemed suddenly very deep. She’d cut her hair short, which was a pity, but she was still beautiful.

“Hello, love,” he replied. He didn’t stand, but did sit a bit more upright against the wall, making his chains rattle. “How are you and yours?”

“Good. Dawnie’s expecting another baby.”

He shook his head. “Still can’t picture the Bit with sprogs of her own.”

“Yeah, and it still kinda weirds me out to hear ‘Aunt Buffy.’ And Giles is dating again. She’s, like, younger than me.”

“Randy old bastard. Knew he had it in him.”

“I guess. He’s happy anyway, and she seems nice. They’re pretty serious. Um … Willow and I had sort of a big fight a few weeks ago but now we’re speaking again. Well, emailing mostly. She’s back in South America. And Xander— You don’t really care what Xander’s up to, do you?”

He shrugged slightly. “He’s shagging demons again?”

“Nope. His current squeeze is one hundred percent human, at least as far as I can tell.”

“Lovely.”

She looked about, as if trying to decide where to sit. He used to have a bed, a metal prison model that was bolted to the floor and sported a thin mattress. But he’d destroyed it during one of his fits, shredding the mattress to bits and tearing the iron apart. Now he had only a pillow and two blankets. They were folded neatly beside him.

After a few moments, she sank to the floor as well, her back against the wall opposite him. Out of his reach. “How are you?” she asked.

“Brilliant. Never been better.”

“Spike …”

He closed his eyes and sighed. “ ’M getting worse. I expect they’ve told you. The bad bits are getting worse and they’re happening more often.”

“You look tired. And bruised.”

He opened his eyes and prodded gingerly at his swollen face. “Yeah. I bash into the walls. Nothing else to ruin so I’ve only myself.”

She nodded and looked as if she meant to stand and move closer to him. But then she didn’t—she only nodded again and pressed her back to the smooth concrete wall. She didn’t look away at least. He was thankful for that.

“And you, love?” he asked. “How are you?”

“Okay. I’m okay.”

“That’s it? Only okay?”

“I don’t know, Spike.” She uncrossed her arms and looked down at her nails. “I’ve kinda met this guy.”

Spike licked his lips, which were very dry, and sucked on his upper teeth. “Is he good to you?”

“He … yeah. He makes me happy.”

Her words were more painful to him than if his skin had been lashed, and yet they brought him peace as well. He tried to smile. “He’d better.”

She seemed relieved at his acceptance; her posture relaxed just a bit and one corner of her mouth twitched. “I’ll try not to screw this one up.”

“You won’t. And perhaps this one won’t be too big a fool to see what he has.”

There was only one window in the cell: very narrow, covered with bars, and too high for even a vampire to reach easily. It let in a sliver of light for a few hours each day, never a danger to him since the light never reached the corner where he was chained. It gave him some sense of the passing time, although he wasn’t sure if that was a mercy. At this particular moment he was grateful for it, because the sunlight fell on Buffy, making her hair glow, illuminating the green of her eyes.

“Buffy, I—”

“They’re still working on it. Giles has researchers digging stuff up, Willow and her coven have been experimenting with spells, and—”

“ ’T’s no use. If they haven’t found anything by now, then there’s nothing to find.”

This time she did rise to her feet and she began to pace, always remaining just out of his reach. He wondered whether she did so consciously or out of instinct. “There’s gotta be something!” she said.

“Rupert warned us when the curse first hit me: no recorded case of a cure. Not one. Not every problem has a solution, pet. You know that.”

“It’s stupid!” she said, as if she were once again a petulant teenager. “A … a temper tantrum curse. What good is that anyway?”

He knew the answer to that. If a human had been hit with this malady, the human would have had increasingly more severe rages, alienating and perhaps harming friends and family. He would have ended up a monster, alone in the world and unable to do anything about it. A terrible fate indeed. And finally, in that frail human body, he would have battered himself to death. Of course, whatever wankers had set the trap hundreds of years ago hadn’t expected it to fall on a vampire: a demon whose frenzies were considerably more lethal than a human’s—and could extend into perpetuity. But Spike didn’t say any of this to Buffy. He simply watched as she stomped back and forth, her stylish boots click-clacking on the hard floor.

Finally she paused and glared at him. “They’ll figure something out.”

“No, love. They won’t.” He sighed. “And that’s why you have to end it now.”

Her eyes widened in shock, but he reckoned she wasn’t truly as surprised as she thought she was. She was a practical sort. Had to be, to survive so long as a Slayer. She knew what was what. “Spike—” she began.

“Come on. Don’t make me beg for my own destruction.”

She turned her back to him.

He leapt to his feet, not missing the way she tensed at the sound of it. But she didn’t move away as he strained to the limits of his chains, getting as close to her as he could. “There are two alternatives and neither of them is pretty. I can remain here,” he waved his hands about to indicate the cell, even though she couldn’t see him, “slowly going mad. Have you any idea what it’s like to be kept locked up in here? Nobody to talk with. Nothing to smell except my own bloody self. They tried to give me books, electronics … I destroy them all. So it’s only me, and I don’t much fancy my own company.”

She shook her head in general denial.

“How long has it been?” he asked her. “How long since I’ve touched the earth, seen the sky. Since I’ve had a leg over or a game of billiards or a bottle of Jack.”

“Eight years,” she whispered.

He almost fell to his knees. “Eight … eight bloody years! Caged in here and losing myself bit by bit. I can’t go on like this. Can’t.” He didn’t add that the only bright spots in his existence were her visits. But those visits were rare—she had business to attend to—and they were a torture as well. Because he could never touch her, and because he always had to watch her leave again.

He fought to keep his voice steady. “And do you know what’s behind door number two? Because the only other outcome is that someday I escape. And then … how many will I murder then, Buffy? How many more innocent lives will I have on my ledger before you come after me? Or perhaps you’d send one of your baby Slayers—”

She spun and looked at him. “No. I wouldn’t do that. It would … it would be me.”

“Then _please!_ ” Now he really did drop to his knees, a supplicant as he gazed up at her. “Please. Do it now. Dust me, Slayer.”

Her jaw worked and her eyes glistened, but her tears remained unshed. It was what she’d come for, after all. If she felt any sorrow over the act or any anger, he reckoned she’d got it out of her system before she arrived. She nodded and reached into her jacket, retrieving a stake from her inside pocket. It was a nicely made weapon, he saw, not just a hunk of broken wood. Somebody had taken the time to smooth the edges, to bring the tip to a very sharp point.

“Thank you,” he whispered and closed his eyes.

But the weapon didn’t pierce him, and after a moment he opened his eyes again.

“Not like this,” Buffy said. She stepped back and slid her jacket off her shoulders, allowing it to fall to the floor. Then she moved forward again and tugged at one of Spike’s arms. Her hands were small and warm and soft, and even after all the blows those hands had dealt him over the years he found it hard to believe they could inflict any harm at all. He stood and allowed her to steer him back to his wall. There she sat again, crossing her legs neatly and pulling him down beside her.

He frowned at her in confusion. “What do you—”

“Shh.” She patted her knee. “Head here.”

“Oh.” His throat was too thick for him to say any more, but he lay down obediently, pillowing his head on her thigh.

As he looked up at her face she ran her fingers through his hair. “I’m glad you gave up the bleach and the goo. I like the natural color. And your curls.”

“Poncy,” he said, secretly loving the feel of her touch.

They spent several minutes like that, she petting and he staying very still, relishing every movement of her fingers. “ ’T’s not exactly a blaze of glory,” he said at last.

“Yeah, but that’s been overdone already, don’t you think? It’s so last season.” Her thumb smoothed his scarred eyebrow. “You’re still a champion, Spike. You’ve saved the world so many times. Even this curse thing—I was about to touch that amulet, Spike. What if it had been me who got cursed? You saved me.”

He blinked away his own stupid tears and looked in her eyes. “No, love. Was you who saved me. You made me a man again.” And then, before he could completely dissolve into sobs, he took a deep breath. “Now.”

She pressed the point of the stake against his shirt, right over his useless heart. Her other hand remained on his face, her fingertips caressing the point of his cheekbone, the firm line of his cold jaw. She gazed into the depths of his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“ ’M not. You’ve given me all you can. Couldn’t wish for more. Cheers.” A final intake of oxygen. “Do it, Slayer.”

She bent her head close so that her hair just barely brushed against his face. And as the wood slammed into his body he felt no pain, just the warmth of lips on his brow.

 _  
~~~fin~~~   
_

 

  



End file.
